White scars vs "White Scars", 30k AAR

My friend Olof and me have talked alot about White Scars for some time and I have always had an fascination about step nomads and this is the next best thing in Warhammer 30.000, Horus Heresy...

We have inspired each other to paint White Scars, sending links and encouragements and have had this game as our intended deadline. Olof had planed to visit Växjö so we just had to have a game in. None of us are really finished with our armies but they are atleast table top.

As I really didnt wanted to start another Marine legion in Horus Heresy I instead got inspired by the infiltrating Alpha Legioneer in White Scars colours from Book 8. This would give me an excuse to paint White Scars without getting another legion...

We would both be using 1000pts armies.

I have some 2hands marines vehicles that I bought a couple of years ago and I wanted to work on that pile of unfinished models. So the list is built with that in mind, to start working on that pile... Besides some bits and 20 marines, this force is all salvaged 2-hand vehicles.

I have built my force with the idea with an veteran force far behind enemy lines, they will have to be able to look out for them self. I wanted my whole force to be mounted on rhinos. They are carrying along light artillery that are able to keep up with the troops in the form of an Whirlwind. For reconnaissance  and for scouting a path for the force do move through I brought along two Land Speeders that I equipped with Volkites because... Chooom!

My friends force are highly mobile with some Terminators for that heavy punch. He would play a Rite of war that I have forgotten the name that let his jetbikes be troops.
His Delegatus and a Apothecary would join the regular bike squad. 

https://www.facebook.com/100008614804729/videos/2139967472967059/

For the game we would be using one of the new scenarios in Book 8, two forces have met and their commanders have had an diplomatic meeting in the middle, an negotiation that brake down.
Extra points are given to taking out the enemy warlord in this game but he and his unit cannot be targeted the first turn.

The negotiations brakes down...

Both of our commanders have fallen back to get some  distance to the enemy.

My outflanking Land speeder take cover behind a large rock formation and opens fire...

The plan was to engage the enemy centre unit of jetbikes with firepower and close in on the enemy commander and his bike squad with my Delegatus with his veteran squad in a Rhino.
I managed to take out all but one jetbike and I also managed to take out a bike.

Outflanking White Scars Terminators, Ebon Keshigs took me somewhat of an surprise. I had not counted on such heavy infantry springing a trap.

Enemy Javelin attack speeder outflanks and engage my Land speeder...

My Land speeder manages to jink all fire.

My outflanking Land Speeder manages to jink the firepower of the enemy so they instead engage in close combat...

With meltabombs it was no problem to take out my Land Speeder unfortunately.

The enemy commander, his bike squad and a lone jetbike charges in...

My Rhino exploded, that was not the end of the world.
But the explosion unfortunately forced me to take a pinning test and to my great dismay I failed this...
This meant that with my plasmagun and all my plasma-combiguns I now only hits on 6:s, this is a catastrophic. If I had instead managed this moral save I am more then sure that the enemy commander and his bikers would have been shredded... Well I can only wish...
This was not the case and the White Scar casualties were light.
The failed moral roll on my behalf also meant that I had no chance of running away from all the enemy.

My second Veteran squad is to far away. It looks rather close but it could equally be at the other side of the table...

My jinking Land Speeder tried to return the favour but It could not hit the enemy.

Enemy charges in from all sides...
And I of course issues a challenge with my Delegatus and the enemy commander accepts...

But my troops got totally trashed...
I could not for the life of me roll a 5+ invulnarablesave of the Delegatus combat shield or a 5+ roll for the apothecary... And my Delegatus was cut down along many of the Veteran.
The only highlight of this combat from my side was that my Apothecary managed to cut down two of his bikes... an enemy apothecary and an regular bike rider.

In an rather optimistic plan the new veteran squad dismounted from their Rhino and tried to take out the enemy commander and his bikes with special issued Alpha Legion bolter rounds...
It did some casualties but I could not take out the enemy commander...

The Javelin attack speeder vs the Land speeder duels continues...

The enemy moves in with a circular movement...
This is not good...

My Land Speeder is finally taken out.

In the end it was nothing I could do and the White Scars had beaten my Alpha Legion...

What a game... I loved it, so much fun. I would like to play this scenario again.

I know its bad to blame the dices but they were really not with me in this game. If my Delegatus and the Veteran squad had just succeeded with their moral save instead things could have looked really different...

It was really interesting to play with only 1000points and all casualties meant something.

Thanks Olof for one really really fun game.


Now I just need to finish painting this 1000pts force. Had I just had them fully painted the dice Gods would have granted me greater luck...

And to get even more feeling for the White Scars here is some Mongolian throat singing...

Ajax II, game 5 - Horus Heresy event

This is the fifth and final AAR from Ajax 2, an Horus Heresy event.
It was some time now since the game so I will make this AAR a rather short one.

My Solar Auxilia with its Druzina knight support would be facing none other then Magnus the red him self, with his elite psychic terminators as well as a massive Warhound Titan.

The scenario meant that the ground was really unstable and with a dice roll at the beginning of each of the players turn the opposing force could be facing an explosion, as well as on another gaming table.
We would be able to drop explosions on other players games... :D

I deployed my force first rather evenly spread over my deployment zone as I was rather afraid of his large strength D blasts that would be raining down on my forces. As I was somewhat lacking on the anti tank weaponry and would have to get close to the Titan with my knights to really hurt it.

My opponent boxed in his Warhound Titan in a corner and had Magnus, and the rest of his force protecting it from any of my forces that would trying to get near it.

I was really hoping for my Medusas in this game as my opponents had so many elite terminators and thats what the Medusa usually shines...
But I had not counted on Magnus, his psychic terminators and all the biomancy of the Thousands Sons...
Even with with St 10 Ap2 the enemy terminators with T7 4++ save and with 4+ Feel no pain was almost laughing at my heaviest firepower...

And I started to more focus on the phase where I was able to drop templates on other players games instead. It really felt that my army was not up for this.

The Warhound continued to blast my army apart and Magnus and the terminators took all the firepower my army could throw at it.

I was not able to get enough objectives, kill his warlord or the Titan to really do any real damage. And in the end I had lots of depleted units and burning wreckages on my side.

It was a loss for the Loyalist.

This was the last game of the event and I had have lots of fun playing. And it was really fun to try out Questoris knights for the first turn. As I had painted them and the flyers especially for this event, more because I wanted them painted then that I thought they would be the best option. But in the end I was really happy with my list.
It was nice to feel that I had some punch for a change, with the Knights. And not only the slowly chipping away on the enemy force that I usually have as a plan or tactics.

I felt that I had a little of everything in my list.
I lacked something but felt I could compensate for those things. With mixture of wins and losses I felt that my army was nether to powerful or to week and rather balanced for what I was facing.
I think it will be some times till I will be fielding Knights again but know I know how they work and have learned a lot about their rules so this was a really good experience.

Thanks all that attended the event and all the organisers, I had a blast.

And I managed to get an honorable mention as the runner up on the players choice Loyalist.

My Background and army pictures for my army in the Ajax sector can be found here:
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2019/07/solar-auxilia-army-picture-for-ajax-ii.html

Army parade:
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2019/07/ajax-2-army-parade.html

AAR from game 1:
https://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2019/07/ajax-ii-game-1-horus-heresy-event.html

AAR from game 2:
https://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2019/07/ajax-ii-game-2-horus-heresy-event.html

AAR from game 3:
http://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2019/07/ajax-ii-game-3-horus-heresy-event.html

AAR from game 4:

https://kampgruppe-engel.blogspot.com/2019/08/ajax-ii-game-4-horus-heresy-event.html